One Little Word Wednesday: Shoulders

I didn't pick my one little word for 2013 until February. I chose the word shoulders. I have no idea why other than the word kept coming back to me. When I think of shoulders, I think of my grandma. Her shoulders were not sloping or narrow. They were broad and square. She had a perfect figure, an hourglass, which I did not inherit. I remember seeing pictures of her in tailored suits with padded shoulders. I don't have narrow shoulders either but they are not square like my grandma's. I have one that is lower than the other. My spine is twisted like a rotini at the base. I never knew I had a screwed-up spine until I went to a chiropractor a few years ago for hip pain. He showed me the spiral in an x-ray of my lower back. Could that whorl be the reason one leg of my pants was always shorter or why when I was in labor, the epidural only worked on one side of my body? Physical therapists have assured me that I don't have a discrepancy in leg length, so I figure it must have something to do with that corkscrew.

Dining Room Cups

Roxy likes her pillow. 

There is a bra on my dining room table. It isn't mine. There is also my lap top, my daughter's lap top, sticky notes, an iPad, a cold coffee mug, a 3-hole punch, a sleeping cat, and a lint remover along with the bra on the table. My daughter is home from college for spring break. When she visits, most of her stuff doesn't make it beyond the dining room, which is a few steps from the garage door. Her laundry bag, gym bag, and school bag line the perimeter of the room. I could complain but I'm not much better. Even though I moved my office upstairs to the spare bedroom over a year ago, I usually end up back in the dining room with my papers spread all over. I frequently use the dining room chairs as hangers for my jackets and bags. In fact, I figured out that if I pile my school bags and purse on the seat of the chair, it is less likely to tip over when I hang my coats and sweaters on the back.

 

How Bad Would It Be to Just Throw It All Away?

A box of my super important office stuff.

This morning's tech inservice ended early so I had time to race home to meet the nurse so we could check and repack my son's wound. That left enough time to eat a lunch of Twizzlers and Diet Coke on the way to school. I was anxious to dig into my new office space and clean, throw-out, and re-arrange. Outside, it was pouring. Really pouring. I wrapped several piles of books in plastic bags and loaded them into my trunk along with some crates. I parked close to one of the side doors of the school and put my bagged-up books in my teacher cart and wheeled in the first of many loads. By the time I made it in the building, I was soaked. I squeaked down the long hallway, pulling my teacher cart behind me. When I reached my office, I flipped on the switch and stood in the doorway, dripping. Before I could even bring any of my own stuff in the room, I would have to go through the bookshelves and purge dozens of ancient speech exercise books. I left my own junk in the hallway and started unloading the bookshelves. At first, I considered each resource manual. I paged through them thinking about whether or not it contained anything I might use during the coming school year. When I started to find my own name written on the inside covers of some of the resource books I began pitching most of them into a large plastic storage bin. Half of these speech drill books were mine when I was a speech therapist for the district twenty years ago. Good grief.

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One Little Word Wednesday: Thread

"Could you take these in?"

Her blue eyes looked at me sweetly. She held two silky tank tops toward me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, I got them on clearance but they are a little big and when I raise my arms you can sort of see my bra. I'll put them on if you want to see what I mean?" She slipped the peach one over her head.

"I learned how to use the sewing machine in the costume shop when I worked at the play house this summer. I could probably do it myself. I just need to sew the sides, right?" We both knew she had no intention of altering the blouses herself.

I considered the baggy armholes, pulled open my sewing desk drawer, grabbed my pin cusion, and began pinching and pinning the extra fabric on both side seams. After the peach top was marked, she lifted it carefully over her head to avoid getting poked. We repeated the process with the magenta top. I checked my drawer for coordinating thread but came up short.

"You're going to have to get me some matching thread if you want me to fix these." I looked at her hoping she would decide that shopping for thread was too much trouble. But instead she put her blouses in a plastic Kroger sack and set off for Hobby Lobby. I really didn't feel like I had time to alter two blouses that would end up in a wad on my daughter's apartment floor. But I did. She had to leave Thursday to go back to college.

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Lessons in Wound Care

I'm learning more about wound care than I ever anticipated.

Sweet rain. I sat in my car in my driveway and listened. As I reclined my seat, I closed my eyes. Thunder. The taps of rain grew stronger and louder against the roof and windows. There was no need to worry about the groceries in the trunk. No ice cream to melt or milk to spoil. As the rain began to let up, I knew I would have to shlep the bags into the house, put everything away, then check on my son. He usually slept about an hour after each dressing change. I think it was a combination of the oxycodone and the stress of dealing with having several inches of sterile Kerlix poked and pushed into the gaping cavities created by that wretched pilonidal cyst. Wound packing occured twice daily. Learning the tools and procedures of this process nearly caused me to pass out when I first saw my son's wound after his surgery. Watching the surgeon pull the packing out as my son shook and cried out in pain was almost too much to bare.

The rain slowed to a sprinkle and I left my car cocoon and unloaded the groceries. I grabbed the bag containing cotton tip applicators, which are like Q-tips only longer and packaged to be sterile, and took them up to my his room. I was right. He was still sleeping. I put the applicators next to the other supplies on a table near his bed and watched him sleeping for a bit. He was only fifteen but he looked much older with his muscled 6' 2" frame and scruffy facial hair. He is still my brave little boy.

 

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Six-Foot Wingspan

"It's a rooster. It's one of the neighbor's roosters. See the red."

"No way, that thing is huge. I'm getting the camera."


"Maybe it's a turkey."

"Here, look through the lens."


"Geez, that thing is butt-ugly.That bird has one wicked helmet."

Yes, turkey vultures are butt-ugly, at least their heads are. What the heck was a turkey vulture doing in our neighborhood? He didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave. As he swooshed down from our neighbor's fence I could see the wingspan. Amazing. I wanted to get closer look with the camera but I was a little afraid. I didn't know if these birds were dangerous or not. My 6'2" football player son, who first spied the raptor wouldn't leave the deck. Baby. I stepped out into the grass, a good 30 yards from the thing, and tried to focus the camera. Maybe just another step. I snapped a few pictures. His feathers were beautiful but that head . . . and that icky eye.

"Mommmmm, he's lookin' at you. If that thing gets any closer, I'm outta here."

Wish I could have held the camera steadier.